BJP to protest if Afzal Guru not executed

Jammu Sept 7: The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (Today) said that they will hold a mass protest if President of India, Prathibha Patil commutes the death sentence of main Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru to life imprisonment.

"We will agitate against any clemency to the terrorist Afzal Guru who plotted the attack on parliament in December 2001," BJP's state unit president Shamsher Singh Manhas said in a meeting of party leaders on Wednesday.

Guru was convicted of conspiracy in the Dec 2001 Parliament attack and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004. The sentence was scheduled to be carried out on Oct 20, 2006. His execution has been kept in hold as his wife filed a mercy petition to President of India.

Earlier, an independent MLA from Jammu and Kashmir, Abdul Rashid had made a resolution in the state legislative assembly requesting clemency for Afzal Guru.